Luke cannot quite believe he is standing here, watching Lorelai walk down the aisle towards him, on her father's arm.
It is the first day of spring. Lorelai is wearing a dress she made herself, spent months working on. It is strapless, ivory, showing off her arms and shoulders. She is wearing his mother's ring and her mother's tiara, and her hair is in long ringlets. She looks more beautiful than even he would have thought possible.
Luke is standing under the chupah he made himself so long ago, in another lifetime. Which Lorelai insisted be hauled here to the park for this event, despite the religious confusion it has caused nearly everyone. Except Luke and Lorelai, who both know it doesn't matter.
It took some gentle persuasion, but Luke talked Lorelai into letting her mother plan, and pay for, much of the wedding. As a result, there is a string quartet set up in the gazebo; lilies and roses everywhere; ice sculptures; and a truly huge canopy set up over more food and champagne than Luke has ever seen.
And there is Rory and Sookie and Lane, all radiantly beautiful in their bridesmaids' dresses; and Jess and Jackson, at Luke's side. Emily sits in the front row, eyes dry, looking triumphant. And there is and Babette and Morey, and Taylor and Kirk and everyone else in the town that Luke has known all his life.
He's not sure how he ended up here. When he turned thirty he realized, with complete conviction, that he would die lonely. He resigned himself to it, as stoically as he could, because what else was he going to do?
And then, slowly, he became someone else, without ever realizing it. Lorelai found him, and wasn't content with the cliché that Luke was set to become, and somehow changed him through her mere existence. And changed herself too, in the process.
It's not so confusing, anymore.
And Richard hands Lorelai off to him; and they look in each other's eyes, and grin like idiots. And the priest is talking, doing his little spiel, and Luke's not listening to a word of it because all he can think about is Lorelai, and he realizes she's not listening either, and they almost start giggling when they both figure it out. Because it's all so absurd.
And yet. When they get to the part where they do the rings, it's suddenly not so absurd anymore, and Luke's breath catches when Lorelai says the words "I do."
And then Luke says the words too, and they kiss, and Luke has a flash of everything that's happened between them that somehow... contrary to everything life taught him to expect... led up to this.This moment.
Click.
~The End~
Sunday, April 13th, 2003, 9:45 p.m.